


Idle Seashore

by farad



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-30
Updated: 2010-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:41:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/pseuds/farad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-"Obsession" Chris, confronted by things other than his demons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Idle Seashore

**Author's Note:**

> For Van and Di – Happy Birthday! Chris-angst! Special thanks to my most awesome beta, the wonderful – and patient! – Dail!
> 
> The title is from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: "Sit in reverie and watch the changing color of the waves that break upon the idle seashore of the mind."

He knew someone was there, standing behind and to one side, leaning against the wall in the late afternoon sun. Not hiding; anyone walking down the street or the boardwalk would see who ever it was, so it wasn't a secret.

But the person hadn't said anything to Chris yet, was just standing there, or leaning there. Waiting.

The anger stirred, but it was distant and vague, as if he were feeling it through the blanket he had wrapped around him, or as if it were on the other side of the town, removed from him. There seemed to be a wall between him and it, between him and everything. He looked out at the street, noticing but not caring that the numerous shades of brown all looked tan, that the red haze that seemed to tint everything was dull, that everything seemed to blend together in his vision, lines and planes of unending tan and off-white. The only color he saw anymore was black, a sea so close that he saw it behind everything, felt it lapping at his feet, tugging at his ankles.

The annoyance at himself was the strongest thing he felt, annoyance at the fact that he hadn't been aware when whoever it was had moved in behind him. That sort of shit could get him killed.

That thought almost made him smile. He'd almost been killed, should have been killed two weeks ago, yet here he was, sitting on the boardwalk in the late afternoon sun, scaring people with his mere presence. He couldn't recall when this person had moved in behind him, watching him, but he could recall the last person to come close, Mrs. Hogart passing by on her way to Mrs. Potter's store. She'd stepped off the wooden walk long before she got to him, and she'd pointedly not looked his way, which was just as well. He didn't have the wherewithall to be civil right now, certainly not polite.

Part of him, the part of his brain in the far back that was still interested in working, thought that it might be Vin. Vin was certainly quiet enough to get in behind him without being heard, and Vin was patient enough to stand there this long without drawing attention. But as the idea slithered around his head, weaving in and out of the scattered concentration, he knew it wasn't Vin. He could hear this person breathing, could hear the whisk of rough cloth rubbing against other rough cloth, the faint flap of paper turning every now and then.

Someone who could stand still but not unmoving, someone who could read, and someone who liked to read. Standing still ruled out Buck and JD, and usually Nathan - he had too much to do to just stand by patiently, even if he did have the chance to read. Even though Vin had never said as much, Chris knew he didn't read, probably couldn't. Which left Ezra and Josiah.

The rough cloth wasn't Ezra.

Chris drew in a breath but slowly, as slowly as he could. The hole in his chest still hurt like a son of a bitch, and any sign of pain got Nathan hovering. "I don't need a nursemaid," he said, working to keep his voice steady. He succeeded even though it was harder than he'd expected and his voice sounded rougher than a woodfile on one of Josiah's church walls.

There was a low chuckle, the sound familiar and confirming Josiah's presence at his back. "Good to know," he said, shifting on his feet. "If I hear of anyone wanting that thankless job, I'll let them know."

There was enough humor in his tone to keep the words from being rude, but they were still sharp. Because they were true.

Chris closed his eyes, the knot in his stomach, the one that had settled there, dense and sharp and unrelenting since his realization that he'd been sleeping with and planning to share his life with the woman who had killed his wife and son, growing just a little larger. It did that every time he was with one of the six men he'd come to think of friends, as more than friends. One of the men he'd been willing to cut loose for that bitch. For a brief instance, in the privacy of his own head, he saw a flash of red, bright and sharp and vivid. But it faded to grey and tan, unrelenting.

He didn't hear Josiah move, too lost in his head, so it was only when the man spoke that he found Josiah leaning on the railing nearby, relaxed as he stared out into the dusty road. "Had a miracle happen today," he said mildly. "Something I'd never have expected, not again, anyway. And I guess I have you to thank for it."

In the years he'd known Josiah Sanchez, he'd become accustomed to the man's eccentric ways and rambling talks that went nowhere - but sometimes somewhere. He doesn't say anything because he doesn't need to; Josiah would go on without encouragement.

"Ezra came into my church today."

It was a strange combination of words and it took Chris a few seconds to sort them out and force them to make sense. He knew Ezra had been in the church before, they all had. Chris had also heard about the confrontation between Josiah and Ezra over the Lucius Stutz's money, words which Ezra had taken as condemnation even though he hadn't given them a second thought once the money was in his hands.

"It wasn't that, though, even though it still amazed me." His shoulders rose in a little shrug. "No, the miracle was that he asked me for help. He asked me for some sort of answer for what he should be doing, what he should be feeling."

Despite the weight of uncaring that had settled on him since he'd confronted That Bitch Ella Gaines in her 'secret room', the shrine to the destruction of Chris' life, his curiosity niggled just enough to look around that boulder of indifference. He didn't say anything, but he focused his attention on Josiah.

Josiah didn't need encouragement. "He was the last one, Chris. As we rode away from that house, the demons that had settled there with that Bitch," That Bitch Ella Gaines, Chris filled in, invoking the protection of his personal curse, "I promised myself that I wasn't getting involved unless every one of the others were worried. Hell, your life is your own, you have the right to do anything you want."

Josiah sighed then, and his head dropped a little, the brim of his hat casting a long shadow on the floor of the boardwalk.

It was his life - or had been his life, Chris thought distantly. When he'd told them all he was staying when it was over with Handsome Jack, he'd meant it. Even though some part of him, in the far back of his mind, had known that none of it made sense. But he'd blamed that on the hangover - hell, he's been drinking for four days, most of which he couldn't remember. And even when he'd been able to think through the pounding in his head and the burning acid in his stomach, he'd reasoned that he was still unfocused because all he could think about was Sarah and Adam and the life he'd had with them, the one he wanted. He'd seen red then, too, red and green and blue and all the different shades.

That life, those colors were the ones he'd tried to forget when That Bitch Ella Gaines had offered him a return to his past, to the life he could have, probably would have had if Sarah hadn't come along. Those colors were vivid too, the deep brown of Ella's hair, the soft white of her skin and nightgown, the gold of sunlight and warmth and contendedness. The black of her dresses, so like the black he saw now, the red of her lips, of the lies she'd woven for him.

"JD was the first, you know - he respected you like the father he never had. Not that he thinks of you that way," Josiah rushed out, and Chris saw the grin that flashed across the man's long face. "But he respects you, and he looks up to you, and he'll do anything you ask. He asked me for confession - which caught me by surprise. No one's done that except Sophia Nichols, and that didn't go anywhere good."

The image of Hank Connelly flashed through Chris' mind, the man who had hated him, the man who had finally accepted him, the man who was out of his right mind. The man who had been Sarah's father. Chris wondered how much Hank would have hated him if he'd know about That Bitch Ella Gaines and her reasons. Because Hank had been right from the very start; it was still Chris' fault.

"He knows, logically, that you didn't know about Ella's involvement in anything, that you were as ignorant as the rest of us. But JD . . . JD . . ."

JD who expected Chris to have all the answers - 'How do you know you can beat him?', 'What if you never tell him that you know who he is?'

'How can you sleep with the woman who killed your family?'.

JD wasn't asking any questions Chris hadn't asked himself, over and over and over . . .

"This has been a hard lesson for him, but he's coming to terms with it. It's always hard when one's hero shows his human side."

'Hero'. The word made his stomach roil. He'd never asked to be anyone's hero, never tried to be. It probably was a damned good thing JD had seen this - he needed to see things the way they really were, not the way JD wanted them to be.

"Nathan's concern is for your health. The hole in your chest is bad enough, and these first few days, when you were struggling to stay alive, kept him pretty busy. Now, he's worried that you're eating yourself alive from the inside, letting the guilt and anger do what the bullet couldn't." Josiah shifted, crossing his arms over his chest. "Buck's just angry - mostly at himself, but some of it's at you. He's doing his own grieving - he didn't cry when we buried her, even though I thought he might. He's working on a cross for her, and he even asked me for help with the sanding and finishing."

The words stirred an old, deep layer of guilt; he'd promised crosses for Sarah and Adam, nice ones. He'd even started on one, shaping the wood, sanding it smooth. But he couldn't bring himself to the next step, carving out the name. Not again. After his visit back to the ruin of their house, to the fenced-in grave site, he'd come back and started on the second cross. It, too, was ready for a name, and like the first one, it sat smooth and unpolished on the porch of his cabin. Shades of brown, nondescript but for their shape.

Josiah's head turned, and Chris could feel the weight of his gaze. He knew the words that were coming next, knew who this was about.

"Vin got drunk the other night," Josiah said quietly. "Drunk enough to say some things I hope he doesn't remember saying. He's got enough pain without worrying about sharing parts of his soul."

Chris didn't intend to move but he shifted before he realized it, catching himself only when the pain flared in his chest. He didn't want to think about what Vin had said, what Josiah didn't want Vin to remember saying. He didn't want to think about what Josiah might know.

"I guess we were all hurt by your decision to leave us - not that you didn't have a right to, not that any of us don't." Josiah looked away and it was a palpable relief. "I think, having heard from the others, that it wasn't as much that you made the choice but that you made it so quickly. And that you didn't seem to have any doubts about it."

Or about her. That was what it really was. He'd jumped head-first into the relationship with Ella, ignoring Buck's worries and subtle concerns, then flat-out pushing Vin away - sending him away. He knew that was what he had done - Vin Tanner's word was his bond, and his loyalty. Chris had thrown it away.

"Ezra was the last one, and I think it speaks more of his concern for the rest of us that he braved talking to me about it. So as the designated confessor, I'm here to complete the circle. We're worried about you, Chris, for you, but also for what it means to all of us. We've all come to trust each other, to depend on each other - or we thought we had."

It was too much. He hadn't asked to be their leader, hadn't asked to be anything to any of them. He'd run away from Buck, not wanting the weight of Buck's grief and guilt on top of his own, yet somehow, he'd managed to end up not only with Buck, again, but with five others, who, like Buck, were all good men, good friends for all their annoying ways.

Damn them all.

Josiah pushed up onto his feet, his arms dropping and his hands finding the pockets of his coat. "Ezra's thinking about leaving. He'll be the first, but I don't think Vin will be far behind him. They'll both go looking for her in their own ways, but if they don't find her, they won't come back."

The anger came then, finally, breaking through the veil of ennui, grey, that had held him since he'd awakened in Nathan's rooms. "Fuck them," he spat, ignoring the tremble in his voice. "Fuck all of you."

He tilted his head, glaring up at Josiah. He expected, hoped, to see anger returned, to see the face of righteous indignation, the one he knew he deserved.

Instead, Josiah lifted one bushy eyebrow, his mustache twitching. "Reckon you've already done that. Question is, what are you going to do the morning after?" Without waiting for an answer, or hardly waiting for Chris to digest the words, Josiah touched the brim of his hat and strolled away, leaving a shadow of red behind him.

Chris sat for a while longer, stewing at first, enjoying the heat of fury that licked at his insides for the first time since that morning that he couldn't take the shot, the morning that Vin had missed. He hardly felt the ache in his chest, the one from the bullet or the one from his own betrayal of Sarah and Adam. It felt like he could breathe again, like he could see, even if everything had a red haze.

But the anger took more concentration than he had, and even though he tried to feed it, tried to tell himself that Vin and Buck and Ezra had been jealous of Ella and what she offered him, tried to remind himself that each of them had already left him once already, Vin running away to Charlotte, Buck planning on leaving for Louisa, and Ezra almost running out with the yet-unclaimed money belonging to Lucius Stutz, the cool cloud of reason whispered that each of them had, eventually, chosen to stay with him, with the group itself.

Had things been different, had they been as he had thought when Ella asked him to stay, he wasn't sure that he would have made the same choice the other three had.

And that, that was the real heart of the matter. Oh, he was angry enough at himself for so many things, but as Josiah had said to JD, and to Chris, Chris couldn't have known about the depth of her depravity. What he truly should have known was the depth of his own. Like Vin and Buck and Ezra - like all of them, Chris had let himself be blinded by the fantasy of what he wanted. And unlike all of them, he'd wanted it so badly that he'd been willing to throw away the best reality he could hope to have.

As the fury faded, he feared the return of the dullness in his mind and perhaps his soul. The blackness at his feet.

"Chris? You ready to come in? Getting cool out here." Nathan's voice was distant but it drew Chris' attention away from the falling curtain of grey.

He turned slowly, blinking as he realized that the darkness before his eyes was because of the fading day, not his own turmoil. Nathan looked down at him, his face lined with worry but he didn't speak his mind. It occurred to Chris that Nathan had been this way for a while, holding his opinions in. Chris couldn't say when it had started, but he knew it was a gulf between them.

Chris drew a breath, refusing to give in to the spike of pain it caused. He tightened the fingers of one hand along the edges of the blanket he was under, pulling it close as he braced the other hand on the arm of the chair, planning to get up.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Nathan's hand move, reaching out - then pulling back and away, clasping its mate. As Chris forced himself to his feet, he understood what Josiah hadn't said: there were ways for people to leave that didn't require riding off on a horse.

It was easier than he'd thought it would be, hardly took any thought at all. He caught his balance first, giving himself a second for the blinding pain to recede and the tunnel-vision to pass, needing for himself, if not for Nathan, to know that this was intentional. Then he held out one hand toward the other man.

For a time, it hung in the air between them, and Chris feared he was going to have to say something. His mind stumbled over choices of words, sentiments, but when Nathan looked up from Chris' hand to his face, the word that came unbidden was, "Thanks."

Nathan's grip was warm and sure, his palm flush against Chris' as he turned to guide them toward the entrance to the boarding house. The walk was slow but steadier than it had been in a while. When they reached the door, Nathan opened it and stood back, his hand going to Chris' elbow in support. But Chris stopped and turned his head to meet Nathan's gaze.

"Tell - " He caught himself, swallowed, then started again. "Would you mind asking Ezra to stop by and see me this evening? If he has time?"

Nathan's eyes widened, then he grinned, his white teeth flashing in the dusk. "Yeah, I can do that," he said.

Chris nodded then said, "Thank you."

Nathan's hold on Chris' elbow tightened a little, as if in approval. Chris stepped through the door and walked through the empty parlor toward the stairs. The walking made him tired, but it was a different tiredness from what he had become accustomed to these past weeks. As they walked up the stairs, one step at a time, he asked, "Buck doing all right?"

Nathan's showed his surprise only in the slight falter of his step. His voice was as calm and even as always as he answered, "He will be. It'll take him a while to get past it, but then I suspect you know more about that than I do." He looked up, meeting Chris' eyes. He looked as if he might say something more, but they arrived at the top of the stairs and he stopped, giving Chris a chance to catch his breath.

Chris nodded and started forward, thankful that his room was one of the first ones. As they reached it, he leaned on the wall so he could fumble the key from his pants pocket while holding onto the blanket. The building was warmer than outside, and under other circumstances, he'd probably have found it downright hot, but weakened as he was, he wanted the blanket and maybe even a couple more. As he finally got the key into the lock, he asked, "Would you ask Vin to stop by? Tell him . . . " He faltered, not sure what he could say that Vin would want to hear, especially from a second party.

"He can bring up your dinner," Nathan filled in the growing silence. "You up for some of Inez's chicken and beans?"

"Thanks," Chris nodded as the lock finally gave. He opened the door and eased into the room. Behind him, he heard Nathan mumble something and thought he might have heard the word 'crow' - but that could have been his own expectations.

He got as far as the bed and stopped, his body demanding rest. Nathan moved past him, headed toward the dresser and the lamp that sat on it. As he lit it, he said more clearly, "You want me to change that bandage for you?"

Chris sat forward, thinking about pulling off his boots. The effort seemed too much for the moment, though, as did the idea of doing much of anything else. "I'll get it," he answered, wanting solitude more than anything at the moment. If he knew Vin - if Vin was the same man he'd been before Chris had fucked up - then he'd be along soon after Nathan left.

"All right, then," Nathan said, adjusting the brightness of the flame. The light cast his deep brown skin in a warm glow. He set it towards the end of the dresser, closer to the bed, and turned to Chris. "If you need anything, let me know."

Chris nodded, closing his eyes. He heard Nathan walking away, heard him put his hand on the door knob, and then he felt the draft as Nathan pulled the door wider, stepping through to the hallway. "Thanks," he called, his voice rough. "For . . . " Chris didn't look up, the words catching in his throat which suddenly seemed too small, too tight.

"You're welcome," Nathan said, his voice rich and comforting. Chris knew if he did look now, he'd see the man smiling with affection , and that was something he wasn't yet ready to accept.

But as the door closed and he was left alone, he found that while the world wasn't tinted in red, it still held color - not much, but more than the dull greys and tans of the past weeks. The blackness still loomed, too, but it wasn't as close now. Nor was the red.

Between them, there were faint hints of blue and green.


End file.
